Gardening Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description

Gardening is an activity—the art and craft of growing plants—most often taking place in or about one's residence, in a space referred to as the garden. A garden that is in close proximity to one's residence is also known as a residential garden. Although a garden typically is located on the land within, surrounding, or adjacent to a residence, it may also be located in less traditional locations such as on a roof, in an atrium, on a balcony, in a windowbox, or on a patio.

Gardening also takes place in non-residential green areas, such as parks, public or semi-public gardens (botanical gardens or zoological gardens), amusement and theme parks, along transportation corridors, and around tourist attractions and hotels. In these situations, gardens are maintained by a staff of gardeners or grounds-keepers.

Indoor gardening is concerned with the growing of essentially houseplants within a residence or building, in a conservatory, or in a greenhouse. Plants grown in a conservatory or greenhouse may or may not require more exacting care and conditions than ordinary houseplants. Indoor gardens are sometimes incorporated as part of air conditioning or heating systems.

water gardening is concerned with growing plants adapted to pools and ponds. Bog gardens are also considered a type of water garden. These all require special conditions and considerations. A simple water garden may consist solely of a tub containing the water and plant(s).

In respect to its food producing purpose, gardening is distinguished from farming chiefly by scale and intent. Farming occurs on a larger scale, and with the production of saleable goods as a major motivation. Gardening is done on a smaller scale, primarily for pleasure and to produce goods for the gardener's own family or community. There is some overlap between the terms, particularly in that some moderate sized vegetable growing concerns can fit in either category.

The key distinction between fruit and vegetable gardening and farming is essentially one of scale: gardening can be a hobby or an income supplement, but farming is generally understood as a full-time or commercial activity, usually involving more land and quite different practices. One distinction is that gardening is labor-intensive and employs very little infrastructural capital, typically no more than a few tools, e.g. a spade, hoe, basket and watering can. By contrast, larger-scale farming often involves irrigation systems, chemical fertilizers and harvesters or at least ladders, e.g. to reach up into fruit trees. However, this distinction is becoming blurred with the increasing use of power tools in even small gardens.

In part because of labor intensity and aesthetic motivations, gardening is very often much more productive per unit of land than farming. In the Soviet Union, half the food supply came from small peasants' garden plots on the huge government-run collective farms, although they were tiny patches of land. Some argue this as evidence of superiority of capitalism, since the peasants were generally able to sell their produce. Others consider it to be evidence of a tragedy of the commons, since the large collective plots were often neglected, or fertilizers or water redirected to the private gardens.

In China, for instance, farmers regularly set up outhouses on the roads to attract tourists to use them, furnishing the farmers with "night soil" (human manure) for use as a fertiliser. These methods make excellent use of calories and minerals and water, but of course violate the aesthetics of most Westerners, who would balk at using stranger's human wastes on their own gardens. There is thus some conflict between gardening for personal or aesthetic reasons, and for practical food-raising, even for one household.

The living wall is an unusual variant of a living machine and is effectively a vertical garden: water dripping down feeds a surface growing with moss and vines, other plants, some insects and bacteria, and captured at the bottom in a pool or pond to be recirculated to the top. These are sometimes built indoors to help cure sick building syndrome or otherwise increase the oxygen levels in recirculated air.

Gardening is thus not only a food source and art, but also a right. The Slow Food movement has sought in some countries to add an edible schoolyard and garden classrooms to schools, e.g. in Fergus, Ontario, where these were added to a public school to augment the kitchen classroom.

In US and British usage, the care, installation, and maintenance of ornamental plantings in and around commercial and institutional buildings is called landscaping, landscape maintenance or groundskeeping, while international usage uses the term gardening for these same activities.